**MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD**

The original Obscure shocked everyone when it was released on PS2 and Xbox in 2004. What was expected to be a dime-a-dozen, bargain bin action game was actually a budget horror title with a pretty good story, graphics, and gameplay featuring co-op that you could play with a friend. It was a surprise hit that received critical acclaim across the board. A co-op survival horror experience that was the first of it's kind, and for a price that nobody could complain about.

The story was right out of a 90's teen-horror movie, and greatly resembles the horror film, The Faculty. One character, Stan, even looks exactly like Josh Hartnett. Five high school students become trapped in their school and must survive against deformed creatues who thrive in the shadows. Using flashlights and whatever else they can get their hands on, the students battle their way into the bowels of the school to stop whatever is causing the carnage. Each student has their own abilities. The strong, jock character can run fast and move heavy objects, the stoner can pick locks, etc. The main objective of the game was the keep the five kids alive to obtain the best ending. If one of the teens die, they stay dead forever. The emphasis of the game was definitely survival.

Obscure II (known in the U.S. as Obscure: The Aftermath) came out in 2007. Three of the survivors from the first game make return appearances alongside several new characters. The core gameplay remains the same, but instead of keeping the teens alive, the concentration is more on the narrative. If one of the teens dies, it's game over and you have to restart. No multiple endings this time around, just stay alive until the end.

Obscure II see's some improvements from the previous game. When readying an attack, the camera switches to a RE4-style camera, and gives you a target marker, making it easier to attack and switch between oncoming enemies. In the first game you just had to aim and hope for the best. The camera itself is slightly easier to control, giving you full 3D control in most areas.

It does have it's downsides. There are save points throughout the game, where in the first game you collected CD's and you could save on the spot. The big downside to this is that you can only use a save point ONCE then it's gone. And the stretches between save points can be long and riddled with enemies. Even though the melee combat is improved, like the first game, using melee weapons is a crapshoot. Getting too close to the enemy always results in unecessary hits. You have firearms, but your instinct is always to save ammunition, and this game isn't too generious with ammo pickups. The enemy A.I. is very cheap and will gang up on you in an instant. Partner A.I. is spotty, and usually ends up wasting precious ammo if you give them a gun (like Sheva in RE5).

Obscure II has to have THE MOST DEPRESSING STORY of any game I have ever played. There is a flower growing throughout a college campus called "Black Lotus" by the students. The students learn that you can inhale it and get extremely high, so it's popularity begins to spread. One night during a frat party, monsters begin to show up and slaughter the students. Kevin, Shannon, and Stan return from the first Obscure alongside newcomers Corey, Mei, Amy, and Sven. Like the first game, they all have their own unique abilites that will guide you through the puzzles and obstacles you encounter. Remember when I said it's more about the narrative? Well that's because PEOPLE WILL DIE. Like Game of Thrones, the people you least expect to go get slaughtered in horrific ways. The fates of some of these characters is gruesome and sometimes heartbreaking, making this story much darker and more depressing than the first game.

If you played the first Obscure, the second is worth your time. LIke the first game it is challenging and entertaining in it's own way. Good story, memorable characters, and decent gameplay keep it interesting for the 6 to 8 hours it will take you to complete it.

Another old classic re-release. As with the first obscure it has somewhat clunky controls, but again, its an old game so thats okey.

Aaah, Obscure 2. You see, the first Obscure game was sort of a hidden gem, a game that was kinda wonky and extremely short, but it had its charm. I remember it fondly, because I play it a lot when it first came out, and I had fun playing local co-op with my friends. The music was interesting, the ambience was pretty good, and even for an old game, the graphics were quite decent.

Then, Obscure 2 came around. I dunno what to say about this one, I feel like I wanna love it, but it's just rather boring at times. Unlike the first Obscure, which was a cult classic among fans of this kind of games, Obscure 2 just kinda went by. None of my friends played it, it seems like it was all in all, an even more "Obscure" game than the first one. I wanted to play it back then, but then I sold my PS2 and I lost the chance. After all these years, they re-released it on steam, and I had to give it a try.

Now, where do I begin? Obscure had charm, and it seems like this game seriously lacks it. The voice acting isn't anything outstanding, and the re-appearing characters got a voice change. This game is really, really cheesy, the cutscenes and the dialog from the characters range from mildly funny to seriously cringe worthy. Then again, they are teenagers, so, hooray for realism?

CUTSCENES

The cutscenes didn't age well at all, the characters are deep in the uncanny valley, and most of the time, it's just painful to watch how their mouths and voices try to sync, and fail. Then again, this is an old game, so, I'm willing to let it slip. But wait, there's games older than this one that had half decent cutscenes, so what's wrong with this one? No clue.

MUSIC

The music is pretty awesome, the soundtrack ranges from choir to stuff with heavy guitars mixed with said choir. Most of the songs are a remix of the main theme (Which is awesome, by the way.), but sometimes, they just don't fit the mood of the cutscene or stage they are placed in. This is a hit and miss, but I personally enjoyed it.


CONTROLS AND GAMEPLAY

In the first game, you could finish the game with all of your characters making it out of the school alive. Death was permanent, so you had to reload if one of them died and you wanted to keep them around. In this game, most of the characters (Except for two of them) are doomed by plot. No matter what you do, their time will come, and most of the time their deaths are a bit underwhelming, I think it has to do with the fact that the cutscenes are rather crude and the voice acting is lame at times.


This seriously hurts the game. The controls are wonky and the camera work feels sloppy at times. I played this with a mouse and keyboard, and in the first game, the camera was mostly fixed, like in old school survival horror games like Resident Evil, with a bit of Silent Hill thrown in when the camera was following you. In this game, you've got "full" control of the camera. And I'm saying "full", because sometimes it's just so unresponsive, that it ends up being frustrating. Your character aims to whatever he or she feels like even if there's a bigger threat in front of you, which can be problematic. Sometimes, you try to aim at something that's off screen, coming towards you. And the game just does NOT let you focus the camera on said threat, so you gotta fire blindly. If there's more than a single enemy, this is quite a problem.

AI

This game was made with local co-op in mind, and that's okay, it's a rather hilarious yet pleasant experience if you play it like that. But my god, the AI in this game if you're not playing with a partner is atrocious at times. When you switch weapons, your secondary character will keep the last weapon you were holding in your hands. The AI will switch weapons depending on how big the threat in front of you is, like switching to a melee weapon if there's small spiders in front of you, or switching to a bigger gun if there's something like a berserker. The problem is, the AI sometimes disregards this, and keeps wasting flares (Rare) on lurkers (Rather weak enemies), or rushing a berserker (A rather dangerous, heavy hitting enemy) with a baseball bat. And they are notoriously poor at dodging enemy attacks. Most of the time they will just stand there and take it, or follow you and get ♥♥♥♥♥ because they walk and stop, walk and stop, even if you keep moving. This ends up wasting a lot of your healing items. At least they are plentiful.

ENDING AND REPLAY VALUE

Unlike the first game, this one does NOT have any unlockables after you finish the game. No new game+, no extra items, nothing, so, once you're done with this rather short game (Around 2-8 hours of gameplay, depends on how familiarized you're with the game), that's pretty much it. There's little when it comes to alternate routes, there's no different endings, and there's no unlockables, so there's pretty much no replay value. Now, the ending. It felt quite underwhelming, and it will probably disappoint you if you were expecting something awesome.

FINAL VERDICT

While I actually enjoyed this game, it felt like a step down from the first Obscure. It's quite frustrating at times, and boring sometimes. I wouldn't recommend this unless it's on sale, unless you like campy horror games. If you're the average Joe, you might find this a waste of your time. I'd say give it a try, play this game yourself and see if you like it. This one gets a big maybe?

I'll give it a 6/10 ♥♥♥♥s.

Nice Game
- Graph 9/10
- Controller 9/10
- Story 7/10
- Scary 6/10
But i think , Obscure 1 still better than Obscure 2

ye

The first game wasn`t anything special,but it had charm
but this sequel is wrong on so many levels

first off there is gameplay.it`s boring.it`s too action oriented and that becomes more frustrating as the game progresses
then there are characters and they are even worse.i dind`t gave a damn about almost any of those characters.Take Sven for example.he has accent so cartoony that i can`t take him seriously and by the way this game was supposed to be horror but it`s in some places so cheesy that i honestly thought it was some kind of a parody.last thing i want to disscus are controls.imagine if you were playing silent hill 3 while having free camera mode without even pressing the button,thats how it plays and it doesn`t go with action oriented gameplay i mentioned earlier.

there is also a coop,but i didn`t try it,so go ahead if you want.


to sum up this game,if you find it on steam for 5 dollars with the first game,buy it,otherwise i would recommend buy the first one.

Good through most of game, disappointing ending.

10/10, 5 stars, Life Changing.

ENDING SUCKED

I've killed some brain cells
I honestly believe the game is underrated. It just came out too late (at least 5 years I believe), when horror genre already went the other way.
Optional second player on the same screen stealing the camera focus, weird camera positions, auto-aim, cheesy dialogues, flat characters, weird save system, lack of widescreen support and some techical issues make the game look bleak by modern standards.
Nevertheless today it's an original artifact of a niche jenre which is sadly almost extinct these days.